Now keep in mind the group doing the surveying is the National Association of College Stores, and folks belonging to that group sell textbooks, which presumably have a greater profit margin than electronic texts.

The organization's May 25 study revealed that 74 percent of students surveyed preferred printed textbooks for their college classes.

The study also indicated that more than half of college students surveyed on 19 campuses said they “were unsure about purchasing digital textbooks or would not consider buying them even if they were available,” Carter reports.

He notes that NACS member stores offering digital educational content said the product accounts for 2 to 3 percent of their sales, though that number could jump to 15 percent by 2012 as “content becomes more interactive and faculty become accustomed to electronic texts.”

The survey did show that students are using their iPhones and other devices, with 41 percent noting they “regularly” get information in that manner.

Carter also points to a pilot study at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, where about 80 percent of the students said they would not recommend a Kindle DX to access their texts.

The professor leading the project told Carter the Kindle was “not flexible enough. It could be clunky. You can’t move between pages, documents, charts, and graphs simply or easily enough, compared to the paper alternatives.”

Of course, those might be issues related to the Kindle and not, say, the iPad or any of the other devices that are coming down the line.

It might also be that students are sticking with what they are already comfortable with. My 13-year-old daughter can already do things with her computer that I can’t figure out, and maybe it is her cohorts that will usher out the era of the expensive printed textbook.